Warm Heart
by MizzMarvel
Summary: Iceman recalls the events of several years ago, when he and Rogue were traveling together, shortly after AoA...


Disclaimer - None of the characters are mine, but are Marvel's.  
  
  
Warm Heart  
  
  
I can't forget you dancing. No matter where we stopped, you were always on the dance floor, moving in rhythm to any song with any guy who wasn't going to touch you. You even got me to dance with you sometimes, and it felt like flying. But the look on your face made me want to cry afterwards, that wide plastic grin and big eyes. It was the mask you wore to hide your pain, to forget whatever you couldn't remember, and it was like a punch in the stomach that you couldn't even take it down for me. All because of...him.  
  
Some of the newer X-Men can't remember you before him, but I do. Flying and being noble were still novelties to you then, and though sadness glinted in your eyes sometimes, your smile was always real, your laugh never forced. Even then, when I was just back from X-Factor, I knew you were special, and I wanted you to think the same of me. I teased you a little more than I did the others, but all I really wanted to do was kiss your wrists where the blue veins twist and glow. It's never seemed to matter that I CAN'T. But then he was there and you were swept away like the ice in a river when spring comes.  
  
What could I do? I am an iceberg, slow to move - it was my fault. And besides, it was only a crush. I survived, I got over it. But though you still smiled and laughed, there was something fake behind it...I don't think anyone noticed but me.  
  
Then you did what you couldn't do - you kissed him, and things started to unravel for you. You ran and I followed, always the glutton for punishment. You were in no shape to be by yourself while you ran, so I went along for the hell of it. I guess...I guess I shouldn't have.  
  
Because Rogue, THAT was when I fell in love with you.  
  
We slept in the same room sometimes, and I could smell you in the morning. We sat side-by-side in the car, day after day, and I could feel you, so solid next to me. We talked and joked, and I switched back and forth between Bobby the Clown, Bobby the Good Friend, and Bobby the Lovelorn Jerk.  
  
And these were MY masks. But you never seemed to notice.  
  
That was the time when you danced so much, and we were both so sad, though we pretended not to be, during our cross-country journey of forgetting. Let's forget that you had absorbed some of his memories. Let's forget that Emma Frost had taken over my body for a time. Let's forget everything and dance and joke around.  
  
Fuck the world. Fuck everything that's happened between then and now. Let's just dance.  
  
But life doesn't work that way, does it? The dancing's over, you kept on your way, went back to him, left, and went back again. And I am the same, just Bobby, and we're not even really friends anymore. Who let that happen? Was it me? Was it you? How come I could go with you across the country, but you couldn't come and support me when my father was so hurt? You cry so much about people not being able to touch you, but you can't even see when someone's honestly trying.  
  
How come I never noticed you were using me?  
  
We were talking once, and you grabbed my hands for emphasis. You wrinkled your nose and laughed, "Yer hands are so cold, ah can feel 'em through mah gloves!"  
  
My smile was weak and desperate, my heart pounding, when I answered, "Well, you know what they say about cold hands..."  
  
But you didn't know, and I never told you.  
  
Rogue, you're on a quest somewhere that I know nothing about, and I'm still just an X-Man. But despite myself and everything, I love you a little even now, and wonder if you think of me, our dances, what I'm doing now.  
  
Just in case you do, I am where I always am, waiting for you with my warm heart in my ice-cold hands.  
  
  
Author's Note - The shortest fic I've ever posted, and the first straight X-Men one, but it's been floating in my head for forever; I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please review, but be gentle! 


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